Help! I need to visit my Grandma in Taipei

I am a UC Citizen living in the US who really needs to visit his Grandma in Taipei. The problem is, Taiwan requires a Special Entry Permit for US foreigners to enter, with one of the documents being a 3-months new Housing Registration (Hukou). My grandma’s current Hukou is currently out of date, and she is not mobile enough to venture outside to visit the registrar’s office. I’ve called multiple TECO embassies and the requirement sounds firm. I have a friend in Taiwan who could potentially obtain the Hukou on my grandma’s behalf, but it seems that there is not option to assign non-relative representative to pick up the Hukou. I’m out of ideas and am desperate to hear if I have any other options. Thank you in advance for your help!

1 Like

3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Unhelpful

Article 65 A person himself/herself or interested persons shall apply to
review the household registration record or ask for the
Household Certificate Transcript. In case the applicant is unable
to make the application personally, he/she shall entrust other
person to make it with a Letter of Proxy.

“Interested persons” means family members. I’ll look for the proxy form.

3 Likes

I believe it’s the first one here, if anyone could confirm that. I don’t see any English translations.

Article 3 here seems to make it clearer that a Legal Proxy does not need to be a family member. This makes sense as I’ve done it as a family member without needing any proxy form.

3 Likes

I feel for you and your Grandma! Just FYI that the Special Entry Permit is really the same as a regular Visitor Visa except they add a line on the visa itself that it’s a Special Entry Permit. In other words, there isn’t a separate permit. I don’t know what “UC Citizen” stands for, but for someone holding a US passport, the cost of a Visitor Visa is US$160.

Might you be able to qualify for a Visitor Visa under any other visa categories? For example, I know someone who was able to enter Taiwan on a business Visitor Visa by supplying ongoing contracts and invitation letters from a Taiwan business contact. If you haven’t yet, it might help to check out the requirements in each of these Visitor categories to see if you might be able to find one that works: Bureau of Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China(Taiwan)

As for your question – and this is a longshot – but does your Grandma happen to have a recent copy of her Household Registration Booklet (戶口名簿)? Note that this is different from the Household Registration Transcript (戶籍謄本) that you described. I’m not an expert on this but I believe there was a law a couple of years ago that passed in Taiwan that allows the Booklet to replace the Transcript for certain uses. The Booklet comes in 4 different versions, and if by some miracle chance she might’ve gotten the correct version, it’s technically supposed to be able to replace the 3-month Transcript requirement. See this RIS link, where you can download the PDF below, which shows on Row 8 that for visa-seeking purposes with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, one version of the Booklet (含非現住人口, 詳細記事) is supposed to be interchangeable with the 3-month Transcript.

That said, TECOs in the US operate with a great deal of power and discretion, and in my experience, they’re not necessarily aware of this law and/or they are inclined to say that regardless of the law, they still require 3-month Transcript. You might succeed if you appeal to their humanitarian side.

One last idea is that if someone near your Grandma can help her apply for a PIN card (IC卡), she might be able to access her 3-month Transcript online and send you a PDF. That’s also a longshot though because I think as part of the application for the PIN card she might have to appear in person but there might be exceptions for seniors or the immobile that I am not aware of.

Best of luck! I hope you can come back and update this thread if you succeed!

Thank you all for the help! Ultimately, I applied for a gold card and was able to enter using that.

2 Likes

Thanks for checking back.